During the summer, I will be collecting tissue samples of the Eastern Pondmussel. I will collect some of these samples with Dr. Zanatta, graduate students, and other members of the research lab. Proposed sample sites in the Great Lakes include locations in Lake St. Clair in Michigan and Ontario; and Douglas, Paradise, Burt and Mullet lakes in the northern Lower Peninsula. Collaborators have already offered to collect samples for me from additional locations in Ontario. From Atlantic coastal rivers and streams, I (or collaborators) will collect samples from New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, thus ensuring that my hypotheses of post-glacial origin are fully tested. Dr. Zanatta has contacts in several Atlantic coastal states from whom he and I will request assistance of in sample collection. In the fall, I will extract the DNA from the collected samples. Following polymerase chain reaction methods, I will amplify specific sections mitochondrial DNA using specific universal primers on a thermal-cycler machine. I will then test samples to ensure that amplification occurred successfully using agarose gel electrophoresis. The successful amplifications will be purified and sent for DNA sequencing at Michigan State University. The sequenced DNA data will be analyzed, with special focus being placed upon the genetic diversity of Eastern Pondmussels in the Great Lakes region and the populations they most resemble from the Atlantic coast. Using mitochondrial DNA sequences, I will trace the evolutionary history of Eastern Pondmussel populations in the Great Lakes region and several Atlantic coastal rivers. The results of this analysis will be put into a geographical context with respect to where Eastern Pondmussels were collected.